Most Western Expats based in the Middle East believe that life is good here... but every so often, we look over our shoulders and cast a glance over the geo-political issues that seem not be be able to leave the region in peace.
Security is the one thing that everyone is conscious about, not least because the region literally floats on oil.
It is this very oil that makes this otherwise predominantly barren desert an attractive piece of real estate for the world's superpowers over the last half century.
Before the Oil was discovered, (it is actually more accurate to say before the significance of the oil was realised!), the world's then superpowers tried to solve (and at the same time ease their collective guilt) one of its problems by shipping off a persecuted people to the region.
Little did anyone know the long terms consequences of the move, and to cut to the end of the story, today we are still grappling with the Palestine/Israel issue.
Many analysts (almost simplistically!) believe that this initiative is single-handedly responsible for the adversarial relationship that currently exists between the neighbourhood and Israel, or even between the Muslims of the World and the West (read America).
The truth is... it certainly provides a ready excuse for all the problems of the region. Another truth is... it doesn't help at all if Israel ride roughshod over International law or UN resolutions... Funny how if another country fails to implement a UN resolution, America will take its whole nation to war against that country, but they support Israel when Israel decides to thump its nose it these resolutions.
The point of this piece... is that for expats, this unresolved issue is probably the single biggest source of concern, because it delineates, whether we like it or not, the world into two camps, the one supporting Israel, and the other supporting Palestine.
So when the announcement is made that the parties will be starting talks again... the optimist in us shouts in excitement and the pessimist in us think... oh, there we go again, with no hope of finding that elusive peace agreement.
Though we must applaud US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for bringing the parties together for talks... it must be brought to her attention that surely she is setting the process up for failure again...!!!
How in the world can you decide to have peace talks in the region and exclude Hamas, the legitimately (read democratically) elected people's representative...?
How can such an intelligent woman like Mrs Clinton believe that they could have a binding resolution when one of the stakeholders are not even invited to the table. She seems to think that if we dont like the stakeholders, we just invite others, or better still, just not invite them at all... and still have meaningful talks...
Its like the Apartheid government who tried for years to have peace talks with everyone but the ANC! They talked with the Coloured People Representatives, with the Indian People Representatives, with Inkatha, and for years believed that could conjure up some peace deal, only for De Klerk to acknowledge that if South Africa is ever going to have to have a lasting and meaningful peace, they will have to talk to the convicted terrorist, Mr Nelson Mandela, and his banned party of terrorists, the ANC.
Looking at it differently, not inviting Hamas to the talks it is like Liverpool arguing with Man United who is the best English Premier League team and forget that Chelsea is in fact the reigning champion!!!
We know when a married couple has problems, the best way to find a solution is for the parties to talk. But for the US to play marriage counselor and getting the parties together..., inviting Mahmood Abbas (Abu Maazen) and not Hamas is like getting one spouse and the sister in law to talk instead of getting the two spouses together to talk.
To come back to the purpose of the piece... we as expats all need to collectively tell the Secretary of State that we are thrilled with the new initiative to get the parties to talk... but we need to tell Hillary Clinton that surely by excluding the elected stakeholder, she is setting the talks up for failure?
Did the US not learn anything over the last 10 years... that you cannot negotiate only with those who you approve of...?
We as Expats in the region dream of a region free of conflict... then truly, we will be living in Paradise.
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